soldiers and even some Indian braves wept when the colors of France were hauled down. On October 7, 1763, King George III of England in a proclamation forbade
making any purchases or settlements whatever, or taking possession of any lands beyond the sources of any rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the north or northwest.
This policy would have made a perpetual wilderness of this vast, fertile region, which by this proclamation was closed to any and all would-be pioneers. In violation of the King's edict the British governors permitted companies to purchase land from the Indians. The Illinois Land Company composed of English traders and merchants obtained two vast tracts of land from an Indian council of ten chiefs. The deed was recorded September 2, 1773:
For two hundred fifty blankets, two hundred sixty strouds, three hundred fifty skirts, one hundred fifty pairs of stroud and half thick stockings, one hundred fifty breach cloths, five hundred pounds of gun powder, one thousand pounds of lead, one gross knives, thirty pounds of vermillion, two thousand gun flints, two hundred pounds brass kettles, two thousand pounds tobacco, three dozen gilt looking glasses, one gross gun worms, two gross awls, one gross fire steels, sixteen dozen of gartering, ten thousand pounds of flour, five hundred bushels of Indian corn, twelve horses, twelve horned cattle, twenty bushels of salt, twenty guns and five shillings in money.
This was the total consideration for a vast domain that finally formed many counties of Illinois. It was only one of several such deeds, and the titles might have been insisted upon had this not been but one year before the Boston tea party and only a year and a half before the battles of Lexington and Concord, the beginning of the American Revolution.
While the French had settled southern Illinois by 1699, and "Meillet's Village" by 1778, immigration to this area had been retarded. With the French quietly awaiting the outcome of the conflict, the soldiers of George Rogers Clark became the first native Americans to enter the Illinois country in numbers. It is probable that some remained here while others returned to Kentucky or Virginia to report the opportunities awaiting settlers in this region which was no longer a province of Spain, France or England.
At the close of the Revolution, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Virginia each ceded their claims in this territory to the newly established government. Settlers then began to enter the region slowly, particularly Southerners from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, most of them crossing the Wabash at Vincennes and settling in the southern part of the future state of Illinois. One important reason our section was not settled was because the Indians had not been included in the treaty of peace signed between Great Britain and the colonies. Some tribes were still influenced by British gold and remained their allies. This hostility finally resulted in nearly two thousand men, women and
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